Guardian Angel
by DreamsofSpike
Summary: Crowley is summoned. It's not the first time - but it's probably the worst. Aziraphale/Crowley hurt/comfort - Warnings: non-con, torture, captivity
1. Chapter 1

As it turned out, life was fairly quiet after the world didn't end.

It took Aziraphale 6000 years - give or take the length of one bus ride from Tadfield to London - to accept and openly admit that he wanted to share more than a side with Crowley. Halfway to Crowley's flat, he offered the demon his hand - and with it, his heart as well.

It took him less than two months after that to suggest that they share a _home_, too.

"I don't know, angel…" Crowley had cast a doubtful look around the dusty, cluttered little upstairs apartment with its soft, muted colors. "This isn't exactly my style…"

"Nor is your flat mine," Aziraphale pointed out, a single brow raised in quiet challenge.

He was secretly elated - because it did not escape his notice that Crowley had only remarked on his dubious taste, and had expressed no hesitation when it came to the underlying suggestion. His hopes were rewarded a moment later when Crowley met his eyes with a warm, almost shy smile.

"S'pose we ought to get to figuring out… what's _our _style, then. Hadn't we?"

A modest little cottage in a sleepy village a couple of hours outside of London, with a generous garden, and more space than either of their previous homes had offered, seemed to be just the place. Over the following few years, Crowley's plants flourished and spread until the entire garden was lush and vibrant with color.

Aziraphale collected books and rare historical artifacts until he should have run out of room to put them all - and yet, quite mysteriously, he didn't. The exterior appearance of the cottage never seemed to change - and still somehow, as Aziraphale added to his collection with abandon, there always seemed to be more space. If the cottage had more rooms after a few years than it'd had when they'd moved in, Crowley didn't mention it - though their occasional guests always seemed to remark that the place seemed to be, inexplicably, bigger on the inside.

The days and nights they passed there were blissfully uneventful.

On one such quiet evening, Aziraphale sat on their overstuffed sofa in the light of the setting sun, sipping a cup of tea and perusing his latest purchase, when Crowley emerged from the bedroom they shared, where he'd been enjoying a long nap - fully dressed and apparently in a hurry to get out the door.

Quicker than was strictly possible in human terms, Aziraphale stood between the demon and the door. Crowley blinked in surprise at seeing him suddenly there, blocking his path. Aziraphale stepped slowly closer, the corner of his mouth twitching with affectionate amusement when Crowley took an automatic step back.

The angel's voice was low and teasing, as he pressed in close, sliding his hands up Crowley's arms. "And just where do you think you're going?"

Crowley grinned as Aziraphale kissed his lips, returning the kiss for a moment before drawing back with an enigmatic little smirk. "Not telling," he replied, playful. "Can't make me."

"I rather think I could," Aziraphale countered softly, his hands edging slowly into somewhat more adventurous territory. "If I really wanted to."

Crowley's hands covered his, stilling them. "Yeah, all right, you could," he conceded with a little huff of laughter. "But I don't think you want to." When Aziraphale looked up to meet his eyes, curious, Crowley leaned down to kiss him again, drawing back to explain in a hushed whisper of breath against the side of his mouth, "You'll spoil the surprise."

Intrigued, Aziraphale relented at last with an exaggeratedly put out sigh. "Very well, then." He raised a hand to gently brush back a stray lock of hair from Crowley's brow. "I shall just have to devise a very special surprise for you as well, when you return."

"Oh, I'm counting on it, angel."

The low, desirous tone of Crowely's voice sent a pleasant little shiver down Aziraphale's spine, and he resisted the impulse to press Crowley up against the wall and kiss him senseless - among other things that would most certainly lead to his staying in for the evening and never going to retrieve Aziraphale's promised surprise.

And Aziraphale _did like_ surprises, very much.

His demon clearly wanted to give him something special this evening.

Aziraphale settled back into his comfortable spot on the sofa with his tea, smiling a little to himself as he contemplated ways in which he could make Crowley's evening just as special in return.

The evening air was crisp and cool, and getting cooler as the sun went down over the village square. Crowley only intended to be gone a minute, so he left the Bentley running, with the doors locked, so she'd stay nice and warm until he returned - well aware that she'd grant him (and _only_ him) access, without any need for a key. There were still a fair number of shoppers milling about, hurrying to make their purchases before the shops closed, so he'd had to park a short distance away from his destination.

A favorite spot of Aziraphale's - the village bakery.

The woman who owned it had called Crowley that morning to give him a heads up that she was preparing one of Aziraphale's favorites as the special dessert of the day.

"I'll put a half dozen back for you, if you can make it down here before closing," she'd promised.

The shops had mostly closed, and there were few cars or people left when Crowley walked out of the bakery. In a particularly cheery mood, he made his way back toward the Bentley, whistling as he went, and carefully balancing the cardboard box containing Aziraphale's treat, so as not to accidentally upend any of them. He knew Aziraphale well enough to know that - against all logic - the _appearance _of his food had a great deal to do with how it tasted to him.

He turned the corner, and the Bentley came into view, her shining headlights a beacon leading him toward the quiet, cozy evening he intended to spend with his angel.

All at once, Crowley began to feel… _strange_.

A sort of fog seemed to cloud his vision, and his steps became heavy and unsteady, as if he were slogging through thick mud. An unsettling numbness came over him, and he stopped where he stood, shaking his head, struggling to clear it. And then, suddenly, all the strength seemed to drain from his body. His heart thudding in his chest, Crowley dropped to his knees, the box of sweets falling from his hands as everything around him went dark.

The demon had vanished and was gone before the box could hit the ground, crushed against the cold concrete beside the empty spot where Crowley had just been.

The first thing Crowley was aware of when he regained awareness at all was that he seemed to be lying flat on his back. His feet were flat on the floor as well, his knees drawn up in front of him a bit. The second thing he noticed was how very _heavy_ his limbs felt - how deeply exhausted he was. With a far greater effort than it should have required, he managed to drag himself up to a sitting position, blinking against the artificial light that, even through his sunglasses, was far brighter than the darkening village street had been.

When his vision came into focus, Crowley looked around, trying to regain his bearings and figure out where he was.

The first thing he noticed was the six-foot summoning circle beneath him.

"Oh, bloody…" Crowley muttered his frustrated complaint to no one in particular - the fact that he was rolling his eyes toward Heaven as he spoke being entirely coincidental. "Well, _this_ sucks, I had _plans_, you know…"

"Oh, good, you're awake, fucking _finally_!"

Crowley warily lifted his eyes, and found himself face to face with a young man sitting cross-legged on the floor, just outside the circle. He had longish, sandy-colored hair, and wore glasses with thick, black frames. The expression in his cold, dark eyes was about equal parts impatient frustration and eager anticipation and _all_ parts a rather disturbing sort of excitement.

The room they were in was a spacious, elegantly decorated parlor, which looked to be far outside of what Crowley would have assumed to be this young man's price range. Beside him on the floor were the typical trappings of a spell - herbs and candles and such - fairly basic stuff, Crowley thought at first.

And then, his gaze fell on the book that lay on the floor next to the other supplies - and his stomach dropped.

"You, uh… don't wanna be messing about with that book, kid…" he warned the boy as he climbed carefully to his feet.

The boy moved with him, standing and crossing his arms defensively over his chest. "Fairly certain I know what I can handle."

Crowley was fairly certain that he _very much did not_.

He himself was vaguely familiar with this book that had somehow come into this young man's possession. He'd heard stories about it, even in Hell - a book that was rumored to be a myth by some, and heavily warned against by others. The magicks in it were said to be very dark and very powerful - and to carry with them very heavy costs to anyone who presumed to use them.

The unfortunate consequences headed toward this boy were not Crowley's concern.

_Getting out_ of this blasted trap and home to his angel, on the other hand…

Crowley drew himself up to his full height, well aware that his slender frame made it less intimidating than it might have been otherwise. That didn't matter; he wasn't relying on his size to make him scary. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them the slight shift in his vision told him that they had gone full-serpent - completely golden and fiercely inhuman in their natural state.

_I know what I can handle,_ the foolish boy had insisted.

"_Do_ you?"

Crowley allowed a slow, menacing smile to slide across his lips, pacing a slow half-circle near the edge of the trap. As he moved, he reached up to remove his sunglasses with a dramatic flourish, taking satisfaction in the boy's sharp intake of breath as he took an involuntary backward step, his very human eyes going wide with surprise. Crowley shook his head, falsely sympathetic.

"I don't think so. I think you've _no idea_ what you've gotten yourself into."

Abruptly he allowed his most terrifying version of his serpent form to surface, lunging toward the kid with a menacing sound that was half-snarl, half-hiss, fangs extended and dripping venom, eyes blazing with menace.

As he did, he accidentally brushed against the invisible barrier that marked the edge of the circle - and an explosion of agony, like a tremendous electric current, tore through Crowley's body. It overwhelmed him and knocked him stumbling backward - directly into the other side of the barrier, which shocked him a second time. He collapsed forward onto the floor on his hands and knees, breathless with agony.

And the kid fucking _laughed_ \- a vicious smirk twisting his lips, his words low and colored with amusement. "Yeah, I wouldn't suggest that."

He took a couple of slow, measured steps to the side, looking down at something on the floor, and it was only then that Crowley realized - at some point he'd lost his grip on his sunglasses, and they'd landed a couple of feet past the barrier.

He couldn't reach them - but his captor could. And something in Crowley's face must have given away how much he wanted them back, because the boy looked between him and the glasses for a moment with fresh interest. He leaned down and picked them up, running his hands over them, a slight smile on his lips as he watched Crowley for his reaction.

A reaction that Crowley could have easily hidden as he usually did, if only he had his _bloody sunglasses_.

"Summoning circle's not… s'posed to do that," Crowley gasped, trying to appear unbothered by the loss, but unable to keep himself from watching unhappily as the kid tucked the sunglasses into the pocket of his shirt. "Just s'posed to be a… a _wall_, not a… a fucking _electric fence_!"

He'd been caught in a few summoning circles over the centuries - but the pain-on-contact aspect of this one was a particularly cruel touch that he'd never experienced.

_Courtesy of that evil book… _

"What were you saying?" the kid taunted quietly. "About… having no idea what _I'd_ gotten myself into?"

Crowley didn't answer. He stayed on his knees, carefully in the center of the trap - his attention fully absorbed by what he'd just noticed at the edge of the room, along the far wall. He didn't know how he could have possibly missed it before. Perhaps it was the rather rude, jarring realization of finding himself trapped - or the dread at the sight of the book that had been used to do it. But now that Crowley had seen it, he couldn't drag his eyes away.

In a spot with no other furnishings that had presumably been cleared for this very purpose, there was a thin, plastic covered mattress, of the sort one might be forced to use in a prison, or perhaps in a summer camp.

And on the mattress lay the body of a young woman.

She was wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans. Her back was turned toward Crowley, her wrists bound behind her.

She wasn't moving. _At all_.

Helpless fury overcame Crowley, as he eyed the reddish substance in the bronze bowl at the center of the circle of herbs laid out before the young man. He rose to his feet again, glaring as he snapped at him, "You do realize there are demon-summoning spells that _don't_ require sacrificed virgins, right?"

"Virgin?" the kid scoffed, casting a derisive look toward the still, prone form of the young woman on the mattress. "_Please_." He smirked nastily. "Now, if there was a demon-summoning spell that required a sacrificed whore, maybe..."

Oh, how Crowley _hated_ him.

His fists flexed uselessly at his sides, itching for impact. He wasn't usually inclined toward violence - but he was _aching_ to inflict some now.

Then, to his tremendous relief, the girl began to stir, letting out a soft moan of distress. Her voice was muffled, as she was gagged, but she sounded like she was in pain, and probably very confused and afraid.

But she was _alive_. That was something.

And Crowley decided in that moment that he was going to make sure she stayed that way.

"She's no sacrifice," the young man continued, glancing toward her with the sort of smile that made Crowley's blood run cold. "She's mine. But - she _is _the reason you're here." He looked back at Crowley, and the expression in his eyes started an unsettled churning in the pit of Crowley's stomach. "You're mine, too, now. I'm a powerful warlock, and I've summoned you, demon, and you will do as I command you… I'm your _master_, and..."

"_Master_?" Crowley grimaced, shaking his head. "Powerful warlock," he echoed, in a dubious tone that belied his growing unease. "No, no… I wouldn't say that… I wouldn't say either of those… no, I think I'd go with…" He lifted his eyes toward the ceiling, exaggeratedly thoughtful, as if trying to come up with precisely the right term, before abruptly pointing a finger at the young man and declaring, "Vile, perverse piece of walking human excrement! Yeah, that's it. That's _exactly_ what you are! But I think I'll call you Pervy for short."

Crowley took immense satisfaction in the way Pervy's smile abruptly faded, his dark eyes glittering with fury. His words were quiet, warning. "I'd be a little more careful how you speak to me."

"I'd be a little more careful how you speak to me," Crowley echoed in high-pitched mimickry, then sneered with a slow, derisive once-over, "I'm not afraid of you… pathetic human child."

"No?" Pervy stepped closer to the trap, arms crossed over his chest, his entire body taut with angry tension. "You should be. I fucking _own_ you now. And I own _her_." He pointed across the room to the girl, who was struggling to sit up, her efforts hindered by the awkward give of the mattress beneath her. "And _you_… are going to make sure it stays that way."

"Why are you doing this?" Crowley demanded, moving a little closer to the edge of the trap, trying to draw attention back onto himself, and away from the girl, who had just managed to turn so that she was facing them - panic in her wide, blinking eyes. He looked away from her with an effort… tried not to look at her again, to keep their captor's focus on him. "What'd she ever do to you?"

"Nothing. Yet." Pervy smirked. "But I'm sure I can come up with all sorts of fun things to have her… _do_ to me."

Crowley wanted to vomit.

"_No_," he declared, putting up a hand and turning away from him in disgust. "Not helping you."

"Just like that." There was disbelief in the young man's voice, and Crowley could almost _hear _his dubiously raised eyebrows. "Not gonna… try to make a deal, or something? Your help in exchange for, like… my _soul_, or whatever?"

Crowley looked back at him again with clear disdain. "Not sure you've got one," he countered. "Wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole if you did."

Pervy blinked at Crowley in confusion. "You're a demon," he pointed out unnecessarily. "That's the _point _of you."

"Really not."

"What, so you're telling me out of all the demons in the universe, I managed to summon the one who's got an actual _conscience_?" He let out a startled, bitter laugh, running a hand down over his face and shaking his head. "Oh, _fuck me_."

Crowley put as much disgust into his expression as he could as he looked Pervy over, his tone flat and unimpressed. "No, thanks."

Pervy looked up at him, his lip curled into an expression that was ugly and malicious as he met Crowley's gaze. "Doesn't matter," he concluded coldly. "Because I never intended to make a deal with you, anyway. You're _going _to help me - because I'm not giving you a choice."

"Why do you need _my_ help, anyway?" Crowley sighed, annoyed and impatient. "Why not just… build a freaky torture dungeon in your basement like all the other disgusting predators? Why drag demons and magic into it in the first place?"

Pervy shrugged, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a slight smile. "I'm renting." His smile faded, a dangerous light in his eyes as he added, more serious, waving a hand down to indicate the evidence of the spell he'd cast. "And why not use what you've got? I'm _good_ at this."

Crowley eyed the book warily. "Not as good as you think," he countered, low and ominous.

"I thought maybe I could find a spell to keep a woman in here - turn the whole place into my… _freaky torture dungeon_." He grinned - then it faded as he shook his head slowly. "Couldn't seem to find a spell to trap humans. But _demons_, on the other hand…"

"Right." Crowley nodded slowly down at the trap surrounding him. "And just how, pray tell, am I supposed to keep her in this house, if I'm stuck in this circle?"

Pervy smiled at him, a creepy, cold smile that made Crowley shiver.

"We'll get to that."

Crowley laughed darkly, shaking his head. "Oh, no, we won't. Number one - I don't take orders from anyone." He paused, amending, "No, wait. Number one, you're _disgusting_. Number _two_…" He turned to fully face the young man, advancing as much as he could, making his voice as low and menacing as possible. "I _don't_… take orders from _anyone_."

Crowley'd had a lot of different reactions from humans who'd summoned him over the years. Most of them consisted of mainly shock and terror at the fact that it'd actually _worked_. Many humans seemed to find that once he was actually _there_, in front of them, they actually had _no bloody clue_ what they wanted to _do_ with him.

This guy was… different.

Disturbingly different. Too calm, too casual about the whole thing. Well prepared, Crowley had to admit, even if he wasn't bright enough to know to be afraid of what he might have brought down on himself by using that book.

He wasn't afraid of Crowley, either. Not even a little bit.

"What's your name?" he asked, quietly commanding.

Crowley let out a rude little snorting laugh, turning away from him. "_Please,_" he scoffed. "There's power in a name, and you're _not _getting mine."

Crowley wasn't anywhere near that stupid.

He immediately regretted turning his back on his captor, as without warning a fiery pain ripped into his side, coursing through his entire body with a powerful jolt of electric agony. Crowley cried out in outraged, pained protest as he dropped to one knee, holding his ribs. When he managed to catch his breath, he glared up at Pervy - who was now holding a cattle prod in his right hand. He smiled as he tapped it lightly into his left hand, calm and unperturbed.

"What's your name?" he repeated.

Crowley hesitated, and Pervy took a step closer, extending the prod.

"Fine, fine!" Crowley protested, holding up one hand, the other still pressed tight against his side. "It's Hastur, all right? Bloody hell."

On the off chance that he managed to get out of here in some way that did _not _involve Pervy's gruesome death, Crowley figured that he might as well toss this irritating blighter Hastur's way. See which one came out on top.

Either way, Crowley reasoned - he won.

Pervy sat down on the floor again, opening the book, and Crowley couldn't suppress the shiver that went down his spine when he apparently found the spell he was looking for and then reached for the ingredients he needed to set them up around him. When they were all arranged to his satisfaction, he began to read the Latin from the book.

_Idiot child. _Never _read the Latin from the book._

Crowley grimaced, braced for the worst as Pervy finished his spell.

And _absolutely nothing_ happened.

Crowley barely had time enough to wonder what was _supposed_ to have happened, before Pervy was clambering to his feet, his movements made clumsy in his furious haste. Crowley tensed as he reached for the cattle prod he'd set down beside him - but he didn't use it on Crowley.

Instead, he crossed the room with angry, purposeful steps, towering over the bound and helpless young woman. Fully conscious by now, sitting up, she drew back against the corner behind her with a choked, frightened little sound behind the strip of cloth tied across her mouth.

"No," Crowley protested, horrified when he realized what Pervy intended. "No, _don't_!"

Pervy ignored him, pressing the prod into the girl's side, turning to glare at Crowley with vindictive satisfaction as she let out a muffled scream of pain, and struggled uselessly to get away from him.

"_Stop it_!" Crowley snarled, furious. "Stop it, she didn't _do_ anything!" He took a step forward - in his desperate rage, forgetting the limitations of the circle for a moment, and receiving a sharp, stinging reminder. He stumbled back away from the shock, gasping, frustrated at his own helplessness. "Stop, all _right_, I'm _sorry_!"

"You lied to me," Pervy stated coldly as he finally, finally withdrew the prod. "Tell me your real name."

The hoarse, pitiful sobs from the mattress tore at Crowley's heart, and he couldn't bring himself to look at the girl, his guilt heavy on his shoulders.

"I did," he insisted. "Not my fault if your spell went wrong."

"No," Pervy laughed, a dark, angry sound. "No, if you had, then you'd be the one writhing in pain right now, not her." His amusement faded abruptly into menace. "_Tell me_."

The implications of his words were not lost on Crowley. The spell was intended to use his name to give his captor some kind of power over him - power to hurt him. Power to control him, probably.

_Could lie again… but he'll just keep hurting her until he gets the truth…_

Crowley had long since given up even _pretending_ that he didn't care about a thing like that.

There was little option left to him.

"Crowley," he admitted with a sigh, rolling his eyes. "It's Crowley, all right? Just… leave her alone."

Pervy repeated his previous procedure - laying out his ingredients, reading through the Latin spell from the book. There was an instant just after he finished when it looked as if once again, nothing had happened. Crowley barely had time for a frustrated realization that perhaps this kid just _sucked_ at witchcraft. Perhaps the spell _couldn't_ work, the way he was doing it, and that poor girl was going to get shocked again because of Pervy's cruelty and _bloody incompetence_…

Coherent thought was abruptly driven from Crowley's mind as an intense wave of pain ripped through his body. He collapsed, overwhelmed. It was unspeakable, unbearable torment. It felt as if he was being torn apart from the inside. He couldn't even draw breath to scream. He was vaguely aware of his captor standing over him, silently watching as time stretched into moment after moment of interminable agony.

Then, finally, Pervy spoke - a single, soft word of Latin.

Slowly, the pain faded away. Crowley's entire body was trembling so hard that it was all he could do to remain upright on his knees. His heart raced, and he struggled to catch his breath as his vision gradually came back into focus. Pervy was crouched down next to him, almost within reach, studying him closely with a calm, curious smile - but his dark eyes were lit with an almost feral hunger, an expression of pleasure that made Crowley's heart sink with dread. A shiver passed through him when the young man spoke, his voice soft and satisfied.

"_Perfect_."


	2. Chapter 2

Aziraphale sipped from a fresh, steaming cup of tea, focused his attention for the fourth time on the page that had been laid open in front of him for half an hour, and tried to ignore the slowly tightening, twisting knot in the pit of his stomach. He glanced up from the book again, looking out the window and down the drive, willing himself to see the Bentley's headlights coming up the road.

His eyes met only darkness.

Crowley had been gone far too long.

Of course, he couldn't be sure of that, really, could he? Because Crowley hadn't told him where he was going, so how could he have any idea how long it was supposed to take?

_But I know he was planning on spending the evening here, with me… and whatever his surprise may have been… Surely he'd have let me know if he intended to be gone for _hours_…_

They'd been left alone for several years now, by both Heaven and Hell - but Aziraphale knew better than to think that they'd been forgotten entirely. It was perhaps unlikely, but certainly within the realm of possibility that some demon or angel might have decided to make a move against them.

Against _Crowley_.

He reminded himself that Crowley would be deeply annoyed if he knew how much Aziraphale was worrying right now.

He was a grown demon, wasn't he? Perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He'd gotten out of plenty of scrapes without any assistance from Aziraphale, thanks ever so much, and gotten _Aziraphale_ out of his fair share, too, for that matter, hadn't he?

_I'm fine, angel, stop your fretting and drink your tea._

He could almost hear Crowley's voice, affectionately frustrated, warm despite his mildly caustic words.

He wished he _could _hear Crowley's voice - coming in the door right now, with cheerful, breathless explanations of how he'd been held up and what had taken so long.

_He's been so happy lately… so at peace. We both have… _

Aziraphale's stomach clenched painfully, a heavy sense of dread settling over him.

_He'd be off guard… not expecting an attack… I certainly haven't been expecting one…_

And wouldn't that be precisely the right time for an enemy to strike?

He walked to the phone and picked it up, dialing Crowley's cell phone, his heart sinking when he did indeed hear Crowley's voice - on his voicemail.

"Hello, darling, it's me," he sighed, stretching the telephone's cord to its limit so as to stare out the window into the darkness again. "Perhaps your errand is just… taking a bit longer than you expected? But - I thought you'd be home by now, and - I'm worried, Crowley. Please, just… call me back. Just to let me know you're all right…"

On the street outside the darkened, closed village bakery, on the seat of a locked but running vintage Bentley, a cell phone lit up… and rang, and rang, and rang, with no one to hear or answer it.

Once Pervy's spell had been successfully put in place, a single Latin word was all it took to invoke the pain that Crowley had felt when it'd first been activated - the all-consuming agony that sucked all the oxygen from Crowley's lungs and left him completely incapacitated with suffering, a hair's breadth from _begging,_ just to make it _end_.

And a single Latin word stopped the pain, as well.

Of course… just to be sure it was working properly… the sadistic little bastard had to test it out a time or two. Or three.

Or thirty.

"Any time I want," he threatened, crouched down, as near to the barrier as he could get without quite touching it. "Are we clear on that, Crowley? I can bring you down in a split second, like _that_... " He snapped his fingers, and Crowley hated himself for flinching. "... if you cross me. Do you understand?"

The pain from the last time still lingered in Crowley's taut, aching limbs, his entire body braced for more - his mind certain that he couldn't _take_ any more. His response was weary, sluggish, as he nodded slowly, still gasping for breath.

"Answer me," Pervy demanded, low and warning.

"_Yes_," Crowley hissed out, exhausted, casting a resentful glare in the boy's direction, taking a moment to try again to catch his breath before grinding out, "I _understand_." He turned his face away, adding, muttered under his breath, "_Bastard_."

"Good." The light, casual tone of the boy's voice was underlaid with a controlled, tense note of irritation. "We'll have to work on those manners of yours, won't we?"

Crowley braced himself as Pervy rose to his feet - but he didn't use the spell to punish Crowley again. Instead, he just moved back toward his work area, perusing his supplies.

"But for now… on to the next step."

Crowley settled into a half-sitting, half-kneeling position on the floor, drawing in deep breaths, closing his eyes for a moment as he tried to recover. At last he replied in weary resignation. "Which is?"

Pervy smiled at him. "You're gonna like this part. Expanding the borders of that trap, so that you can move around in the house. So that you can _guard_ my house when I'm not here."

Crowley glanced over toward the girl, who was calmer now, as it'd been a good hour at least since Pervy had gone anywhere near her. She was quiet, watching with wide, wary eyes; he could see the intelligence in her face, knew that she was listening closely to everything that was happening around her - even if most of it certainly had to be challenging everything she'd ever thought she knew of reality.

"You can't just endlessly sit in that circle." Pervy nodded toward the girl. "And she can't stay tied up all the time. That way lies loss of circulation and gangrene and limbs falling off, and…" He shook his head with a little grimace. "I didn't sign up for that level of gross."

"Just the _creepy rapist_ level of gross, then," Crowley remarked, staring down at the markings etched into the floor beneath him. "Well, if that's all…"

Pervy looked up at him again with a tense, tolerant smile, but there was a trace of anger in his eyes.

"_Careful_."

His tone remained mild, casual - but carried enough warning to send a little shiver down Crowley's spine.

He went quiet, waiting - _thinking_ \- as Pervy explained what he was doing, in an infuriatingly patronizing tone, as if he was speaking to a particularly stupid child.

"When I'm finished, you'll be able to move throughout the house freely." He paused, amending, "Relatively freely. Certain rooms are off limits. To you, and to her. The spell will keep you inside this house, and out of the off-limits areas." He cast a malicious grin at Crowley. "_You'll_ keep _her_ inside the house and out of the off-limits areas. If you know what's good for you. You both belong to me - and there's nothing you can do about that. So don't even try."

Crowley fairly _burned_ with frustrated anger. He was no one's trained guard dog - no matter how much he might have wanted to rip the boy's throat out with his teeth.

And he wanted _no part_ of whatever violation Pervy intended to inflict on his female captive.

He stayed silent in the center of the circle, watching closely as his captor performed this new spell - watching, and _waiting_. Because the one fact that stood out to him among Pervy's super-villain monologuing was that when this spell was complete, when the barrier was extended… the boy would be within his reach.

He was going to have a _chance_.

Crowley remained on his knees, quiet and non-threatening, even as he felt the constant electric crackle of energy, the tension of the barrier around him, begin to ease as it shifted outward. When Pervy finished the Latin and gave him an expectant look, nodding to indicate that he should test his new limits, Crowley climbed carefully to his feet. He stretched his limbs slowly, then edged toward the former limits of the barrier. Carefully, he reached out to touch nothing where it had been… took a single, cautious step out of the circle, looking down at it for a long moment.

Then he lifted his eyes, glowing with menace, and gave the boy a slow, dangerous smile.

With a snarl, fangs extended, he lunged for his throat.

Crowley's attack was repelled, just before he would have touched his target, the breath driven from his body by a powerful force, like slamming into a brick wall - if said brick wall was somehow electrified, sending a tremendous jolt of agony through his body on impact. Crowley crumpled to the floor, gasping as the pain faded out, nearly as swiftly as it had hit.

"Well, _that_ was stupid," Pervy glared down at him, smug, perhaps a bit amused despite his anger. "You think I'd give you this much freedom of movement without taking some protective precautions?"

His smile vanished.

A single word of Latin passed his lips, for the thirty-first time.

He let the pain go on far longer than he had yet, watching Crowley with cold, impassive eyes as Crowley's entire body seized up, choked cries of helpless suffering wrenched from his lips as the searing agony coursed through him.

Finally, he spoke the word to end the punishment.

He crouched down to face Crowley while Crowley struggled to regain his composure, to catch his breath. His vision was swimming, his stomach churning. He flinched as Pervy reached for him, catching a handful of his hair and jerking him in closer.

"You can't leave," he reiterated, quiet and emphatic. "You can't hurt me. If you try - that's what happens." He paused, smiling as he added, "I can hurt you, though. And I can hurt _her_."

Crowley's stomach dropped, but he swallowed slowly, staring at the floor between them - unwilling to show his captor how effective the threat was.

Pervy used his grip on Crowley's hair to tilt his head back, insisting on eye contact, and Crowley's jaw clenched against the searing pain in his scalp as the boy leaned in closer, his words clipped and measured.

"So you're going to behave yourself. Aren't you?"

Crowley glared up at him, his chest heaving as he still struggled to regain his breath, but remained stubbornly defiant.

Crowley's gaze followed the boy's hand as he reached down to pick up the cattle prod from the floor at his feet. He tensed and braced himself - but then, Pervy cast his gaze slowly, meaningfully, toward the girl across the room. Crowley's back was turned to her, but he could hear her reaction, heard the choked little sound of terror she made in her throat as she understood the threat. Pervy waited until Crowley met his gaze again, his eyebrows raised expectantly.

"Yes," Crowley hissed, resentful but defeated. "_Yes_, fine, all right…"

The young man studied Crowley for a long, tense moment, eyes narrowed and speculative. Finally, seemingly satisfied, Pervy released his grip on Crowley's hair and stood up, leaving him there on his knees. "Good."

Then, he turned and started toward the girl with swift, purposeful steps.

Crowley's stomach lurched. "I said _yes_, all right?" he protested. "Leave her alone!"

He got quickly to his feet, as the girl scrambled back into the corner, trying uselessly to put some distance between herself and Pervy before he reached her. With a snap of his fingers, Crowley was across the room and standing between them. Pervy stopped, disbelief on his face, his fist flexing around the handle of the cattle prod.

Crowley glanced down at it for a moment, swallowing hard, and then met the boy's eyes, his voice low and warning.

"I said _leave her alone_."

'Yeah, you did." There was a disarming note of amusement in Pervy's voice, but a malicious light in his eyes. "_Twice_." He jabbed the prod at Crowley, but Crowley caught it, blocking it.

Immediately the searing pain of the spell overcame him, and Crowley dropped like a stone to the floor, his arm wrapped across his torso, his entire body shaking. Pervy crouched down next to him, the prod resting across his knees.

"And then," he continued speaking, his casual tone utterly unchanged, "you had the nerve to _attack_ me."

The pain was fading, but Crowley was still too slow to avoid it when the boy pressed the cattle prod into his ribs, right where he'd struck before. He held it there for a few seconds before withdrawing it, giving Crowley a minute to recover - so that he could feel it when he did it a second time, this time putting the weapon to the side of Crowley's neck.

When the stars faded from before Crowley's eyes and his vision came back into focus, he found that he'd collapsed with his face to the floor. Each breath felt like inhaling shards of glass into aching lungs. With an effort he pushed himself back up to his knees, to see Pervy waiting with a patient smile. When at last he met the boy's eyes with a bitter glare, Pervy raised two fingers between them.

"That's one for trying to hurt me," he explained, quiet and calm. "And that's one for thinking you can tell me what to do." He drew in a sharp little breath as if just remembering something he'd forgotten, and then raised a third finger. "And one more," he declared, standing up straight over Crowley's kneeling form. "For trying to keep me from what's mine."

Crowley cringed as he took a step forward - but he didn't shock Crowley again. Instead, he stepped past him, closing in on the girl.

"No," Crowley gasped out, though he lacked the strength to try to get between them again. His limbs felt numb and heavy, and wouldn't respond to his brain's frantic demands that he do _something, anything_ to _stop him_!

Pervy held the cattle prod against the girl's arm, and she let out a plaintive, muffled scream.

"Stop it!" Crowley protested, the words anguished and quaking, and not even the slightest bit intimidating. "Leave her alone!"

"Or you'll what?" Pervy snapped, though as he spoke he finally withdrew the weapon and turned to face Crowley again, towering over him.

Closing the slight distance between them, he grabbed Crowley's hair and yanked his head back with one hand, holding the cattle prod a bare inch from Crowley's throat. Crowley weakly snapped his fingers, willing himself across the room and out of the boy's grasp - but nothing happened. He swallowed convulsively, unable to move, unable to look away from the blue sparks of electric light as Pervy pressed the button… just barely too far from Crowley's skin to burn him.

"Yeah… you've still got access to a few tricks," the boy conceded softly with a cruel smirk. "What would be the point of a pet demon otherwise? But that spell I put on you… it's connected to _my will_." Crowley's heart sank as he continued, and he began to understand the truth of the circumstances in which he'd found himself. "Here's the rock solid, carved-in-stone _rules_: You can't use your powers to get out of here. You can't use them to hurt me. Or to _stop_ me. You so much as _touch_ me - and you go down."

He released the button on the prod, allowing the electric sparks to fade away, and pressed the hot metal tip of the weapon to Crowley's throat. Crowley hissed a little at the heat - just enough to be unpleasant, without _really_ hurting him - his body tense, his heart lurching as the boy trailed it slowly up until it rested against Crowley's face, just below his eye.

"Anything else you do I don't like… anything at all," Pervy continued with a cold smile. "All it takes is a _single word_, and that spell will make you_ wish_ for this thing instead - for _death_ instead." He paused. "Or just _maybe_… I take it out on _her_ instead. Is that what you want?"

Crowley swallowed slowly, closing his eyes, his heart sinking. Defeated, he shook his head as much as the boy's tight grip on his hair would allow. "No," he whispered. He hesitated a moment, wrestling with his own pride, before adding softly, "_Please_. No."

That seemed to please Pervy, because finally, he pulled the cattle prod away, easing his grip on Crowley's hair, and then releasing him entirely.

"Better," he remarked with a satisfied nod.

And then he moved toward the girl again.

"Please don't," Crowley choked out, raising his voice as much as he could - but he remained where he was, on his knees next to the mattress, feeling helpless and useless. His throat ached, his body weak and ravaged from the multiple shocks he had taken in the past few hours. "Don't hurt her…"

"I will if I want to," Pervy declared, his voice low and hard. "Try and stop me. You'll only make things worse. For you _and_ her."

It was true. Crowley knew it was.

He could only watch as Pervy closed in on the girl, again, despite her desperate efforts to avoid him, succeeding only in backing herself into the corner. The boy shushed her, his voice and hands disturbingly gentle as he reached out to stroke her hair. She flinched, but had no room to move any further away, and instead went very still.

"See? This is better," Pervy said softly. "Much better… good girl…"

Crowley felt sick - and desperately ashamed.

To his surprise, and relief, Pervy didn't hurt the girl again - not right then, anyway. Instead, he just reached behind her head to carefully untie the gag. As he set it aside, Crowley noted a bit absently that it was a scarf, color coordinated to the girl's outfit - probably one she'd been wearing when he'd taken her.

Once her mouth was free, the girl flexed her jaw a little, wincing as if it hurt. She glanced at Crowley, and then past him to the door, swallowing slowly.

"You can scream if you want," Pervy informed her. "This whole house is supernaturally soundproofed. No one can hear anything from outside." He glanced back toward the book on the floor. "All kinds of cool things in that book. I've taken my whole property and like… well, basically it's supernaturally - like, _everything_-proofed. If you're outside the house, you wouldn't even know it existed. So, yeah. Scream all you like. No one will hear you."

He rose to his feet, looking between his two captives with satisfaction.

"I've got to get ready for work," he informed them. He waved a hand idly across the space that separated them. "Go ahead, get to know each other. You're going to be spending a lot of time together."

Crowley watched him warily, surprised when he actually left the room, disappearing into a room off to the side, and closing the door behind him.

The first thing Crowley did was to go to the front door and try opening it - with predictably painful results. Once he'd recovered from the shock and picked himself up off the floor, he began looking around the room for anything that might be useful. There didn't seem to be any phones or computers or any other electronics they could have used to get help… nothing sharp or heavy that he might have used as a weapon.

He _did_ find a box of tissues on the coffee table.

With a soft sigh, he picked it up and carried it across the room to where the girl sat on her thin, plastic mattress. She had carefully watched his reconnaissance of the room with wide, tearful blue eyes, but had said nothing the entire time. He sat down next to her, and she shifted away just a little, seeming uneasy, but not truly afraid of him.

"I'd untie you," he whispered, "but I think it's best we wait 'til he leaves, yeah?"

She considered a moment, and then nodded, a slow swallow visible in her throat.

Crowley opened the box of tissues and held one up for a moment, before tentatively reaching toward her face, pausing and waiting for her permission to go on. When she nodded again, he used it to gently brush the tears from her face.

"Y-your eyes," she whispered at last, her voice hoarse and breaking.

"Yeah," he drawled, tossing the damp tissue aside and settling in beside her. "Demon thing."

"You're… actually a demon." She blinked, visibly processing.

"And _still_ not the scariest guy in the room. Go figure." He offered her a rueful smile - hoping to draw one from her in return.

She just stared.

Crowley lowered his gaze, swallowing against the knot in his throat. "I - I'm sorry," he whispered. The words felt thick and clumsy and useless.

She was quiet for a moment, before responding in a voice hushed with resignation, "You tried."

_Not hard enough… not good enough… _

Crowley ventured to glance up at her again. "What's your name?" he asked her.

Her lips parted automatically to answer - and then she stopped, frowning as she glanced at him uncertainly. "There's - power in a name, right?" she echoed his earlier words. "Maybe - I shouldn't…"

Crowley took that in, mildly surprised, and then let out an appreciative little huff of laughter. "Smart girl," he sighed sadly.

Her face fell, her eyes welling with fresh tears. "Not _too_ smart," she muttered, sniffling. "Should have been watching… shouldn't have… let him…" Her voice broke, and her shoulders shook with quiet sobs.

"Aww, come now, love, it's not your fault," Crowley soothed her, taking out a clean tissue and gently brushing it across her cheek. "'S all right." She gave him a baleful glare before looking away, and he grimaced, shaking his head. "Well, it's not. I know it's not." He ducked his head to catch her gaze again, waiting until she met his eyes to smile and whisper, "But it _will be_."

At last, he saw a spark of something besides terror and despair in her eyes - perhaps hope… or perhaps simply the beginning traces of connection, of camaraderie in the face of their rather hopeless-seeming shared dilemma.

The door to the room where Pervy had gone creaked open, and the girl visibly tensed, instinctively shifting a little closer to Crowley. He sat up a little straighter, squaring his shoulders, feeling oddly protective - though he knew there was little he could do if their captor decided to hurt her - not without potentially making things much, much worse, anyway.

Pervy had changed clothes, so Crowley concluded that the room he'd gone into must have been his bedroom. He was now wearing some sort of dark brown uniform. Crowley swiftly scanned it for a name tag, or a business name, or some identifying feature, but found nothing of any use.

"I'm off to work," Pervy announced. "Night shift. I'll be back in the morning." He winked at the girl, who shuddered and averted her eyes. "And then we'll have some fun."

Crowley felt sick.

The front door closed and locked behind the boy with an audible click - and Crowley immediately turned toward the girl, gesturing with one hand for her to turn her back to him. She swiftly complied, and he untied her wrists, then rose to his feet and held out a hand to help her up. She picked up her scarf from where it lay beside her and tucked it into her pocket. Together they moved to the door.

Crowley winced a little in anticipation of pain, as he hesitantly reached out a faltering hand to try the handle again.

The girl held up her own hand in a halting gesture. "Let me try it," she offered. "He said there's no spell keeping me here. At least trying won't hurt me."

Crowley appreciated that she'd noticed - and cared - what happened to him when he'd tried it earlier. And, well - he couldn't argue with her logic.

He waved his hand toward the door with a little flourish, taking a step back and allowing her to take his place. The door was indeed locked, as they'd expected. She pounded at it, yanked the handle, even kicked it - with no success.

"I'm not strong enough," she admitted at last, dejected. "Maybe there's a back door?" She turned away as if to go explore the rest of the house.

"Wait." Crowley frowned critically at the door for a moment, his hand raised, and then snapped his fingers. When nothing happened, he lowered his hand - then raised it again, a smile lighting up his face as inspiration struck. He snapped his fingers once more, then nodded toward the door.

"Try it again."

"Try _what_ again, exactly?" She frowned.

Crowley gave her a sly, mischievous grin, and a little shrug. "Anything, really. I just turned the bloody thing to cardboard."

She blinked in surprise. "So… that doesn't go against his, like, 'my will be done' spell, or whatever?"

"Apparently, spell's a bit on the _specific_ side," Crowley observed. "I tried using my power to just… _blast_ the door open, first. Nothing." He paused, his smile widening with satisfaction. "The spell won't let me - break it or burn it or otherwise _open_ it - but turning it into _something else entirely_, is apparently not something our supreme overlord of wankers ever imagined."

She stared at him for a long moment, incredulous, before looking back toward the door. She pushed at the panel in the center cautiously - letting out a startled little squeak when it simply pushed out of the door completely and onto the ground outside. The rest of the formerly metal door fell away just as easily with minimal effort, and in moments they were staring out into the darkness.

Neither of them moved. Her gaze was lowered to the floor, and she bit the corner of her lip, finally looking up at him in anguished uncertainty. Though there was a sinking feeling in his stomach at the prospect of being left here alone, Crowley forced an encouraging smile, nodding toward the empty spot where the door had been.

"Go on, then," he urged her. "Get out of here."

She frowned, clearly troubled, though the longing in her eyes as she glanced toward freedom was unmistakable. She shook her head slowly. "I can't," she whispered. "When he comes back…"

"You'll have gotten help by then," Crowley cut her off firmly, moving in closer to her to take her arms in his hands and meet her eyes. "You've _got_ to."

She glanced past him, back into the house. "Maybe there's a phone, or…"

"There isn't," Crowley insisted, quite certain. "I looked already, and he'd have locked them all up, surely. The only way either of us get out of here is if _you_ get out of here, _now_." Her expressive blue eyes were anguished as she looked up at him, but he could see the swelling surrender there, knew her desperation for escape was winning out. "_Go_," he insisted. "While you can. And when you get out, please call my friend, Mr. Fell." He gave her Aziraphale's address and number, performing a quick little miracle to ensure she'd remember. "He can help. But you need to hurry..."

She hesitated just a moment longer, before her shoulders fell in acquiescence, and she leaned in to impulsively hug him. Startled, Crowley stood very still for a moment, just blinking in surprise - but then he softened, returning the hug. 

"I'll get you out," she promised. "I won't leave you here."

"I know," he assured her. "Now_ go_."

She went.

Crowley passed the unbearably quiet, lonely hours that followed by exploring what limited portion of the house he was allowed access to - which wasn't much. Pervy's bedroom door gave him a similar shock as the front door had done. There was no door leading into the kitchen, just an empty space - but Crowley found that impassable as well.

_Too many potential weapons in there, most likely… couldn't have your helpless little sex slave fighting back, now could you? No, that might suggest you actually possess a pair of balls…_

There was a staircase leading to the second floor, and one leading down to a cellar. Crowley found that the stairs were accessible to him, but the moment he reached the reached the floor to which they led, he was blocked.

_How'd he expect me to keep that girl from going into off-limits areas, if I can't go in them myself?_ he wondered with irritation.

The answer occurred to him a moment later, dark and troubling.

_Easy. He didn't think you'd have any problem with hurting her to stop her. _

Eventually, Crowley settled back down on the mattress with a weary sigh.

Surely she must have reached civilization by now. Aziraphale would be here soon. Any time now, really. Pervy had said that his property was magically protected, yeah - but surely he wasn't prepared to deal with the power of angels. Aziraphale could certainly handle any half-assed human magic… see past whatever warding the boy had put in place… right?

Crowley's eyes fell on the book from which the boy had apparently taken all of his magical knowledge - and felt a sick, sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.

It was a _very_ powerful book.

Although it went against every instinct of self-preservation he had, Crowley _very briefly_ considered attempting to use the book himself. That profoundly terrible idea was swiftly thwarted, however, when he found that attempting to touch the book had an effect very similar to attempting to open the front door.

_Doesn't matter,_ Crowley reassured himself. _He'll be here._ _Any time, now. Any minute. _

_Aziraphale will be here. _

Where Aziraphale was, at that moment, was on the street outside the village bakery.

He was staring in dismay at the parked and running Bentley, its bright headlights the only light anywhere on the darkened street. He called Crowley's phone again - and his heart sank when through the window, he could see it light up where it lay on the passenger seat.

Aziraphale walked a little ways down the deserted sidewalk, focusing his energy and trying to reach out with his mind, his spirit, to try to find Crowley's and connect with it. Many times, they could feel when the other was near; if Crowley was anywhere close by, then perhaps Aziraphale would be able to feel his presence.

He couldn't.

"Crowley?" he called out, a note of panic building in his voice. "_Crowley_!"

His forceful, urgent cry broke off as he lost a balance a bit when he stepped on something far softer than the sidewalk. Aziraphale glanced around a little. Fairly certain that he was alone, he snapped his fingers.

"Let there be light!"

He backed up a little, bending down to see what it was that had nearly tripped him - and found a crumpled bakery box, still filled with food. His fears only grew stronger when he recognized the abandoned bakery order - a half dozen of his favorite lavender custard tarts.

Aziraphale stood up straight again, snapping his fingers to turn out the unnatural light again.

His heart was racing, a knot in his throat.

Crowley never would have left the sweets he'd come here to get for Aziraphale - and he'd never have left the Bentley, especially running, with the keys locked inside.

Not of his own free will, at any rate.

"Crowley, my love," he murmured, glancing around the empty streets. "What's happened to you? Where have you gone?"

At some point during the interminable waiting, Crowley drifted off to sleep, sitting up on the uncomfortable mattress.

He awakened to the sound of crumpling cardboard and heavy, forceful footsteps. His heart leapt up into his throat, even before he opened his eyes.

_Aziraphale? _

It wasn't.

Pervy stormed into the room, swiftly closing the distance between himself and Crowley. There wasn't even time for Crowley to stand to face him; he braced himself for the boy's rage - but he wasn't prepared when he tossed something down in front of Crowley. Wasn't prepared for the overwhelming sense of grief and _guilt_ he felt as he slowly realized what it was that he was seeing, and what it meant.

The soft floral scarf he'd last seen when his fellow captive had tucked it into her pocket - now torn and stained dark with blood.

"Too bad," Pervy remarked, his words cold and hard as stone. "She almost made it."

"You…" Crowley shook his head in desperate denial. "Y-you…"

His lost, broken words were cut off when the boy grabbed his hair and yanked him up onto his knees, closer, leaning down to snarl into his ear, "_Your fault_."

The condemnation echoed in Crowley's mind, so forcefully that he almost didn't hear it when the boy spoke just one more word before letting him go.

The searing agony drove all conscious thought from his mind, overtaking even the guilty echo of his captor's words, until all Crowley could feel was the pain. Pervy stared down at him, cold and impassive for a long moment, before turning and walking into his bedroom and closing the door behind him, leaving Crowley alone with his suffering.

He had no idea how long it lasted. Long enough that he desperately tried to crawl through the empty space where the front door had been. Long enough that he found himself weakly pounding at the closed bedroom door, hoarsely pleading for the boy to come out and make it stop. Long enough that eventually, mercifully, he blacked out, and the pain faded into nothingness.

When he woke up, the pain was gone. Pervy was seated at his desk in the corner of the room, perusing his cursed book.

And there was a new girl, bound and gagged and huddled on the mattress - staring at Crowley with wide, terrified eyes.


End file.
